FTTH on the rise, but UK lags behind

The UK continues to lag behind when it comes to the adoption of the very fastest fibre services, such as fibre-to-the-home (FTTH), a new global survey suggests.

FTTH Council Europe's new ranking of FTTH/P/B progress shows that the UK has made solid progress in the past year when it comes to rolling out the technology, but is still far behind its international counterparts.

A key reason is that most superfast broadband coverage in the UK is delivered via cheaper hybrid-fibre technologies such as BT’s up to 80Mb Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) and Virgin Media’s 152Mb cable network, which are also quicker to deploy than FTTH.

As such, the UK does not appear on the new list, which requires at least 1% household penetration to be a factor.

The UAE is leading the way, with almost 70% penetration of FTTH, while South Korea sits in second, with roughly 65% penetration, two-thirds of which is FTTH, with the remainder being fibre-to-the-building (FTTB).

The UK should appear on next year's list, however, with the likes of Hyperoptic, CityFibre, Sky Broadband and TalkTalk all aiming to significantly increase the rate of penetration and adoption over the coming months and years.

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